Game-related Soccer Training
“Those who can play 3 on 3 successfully can play soccer!”
‘Soccer Alive’ provides players with an insightful training philosophy. Using in-game situations, it helps players improve the movements and behaviours that are most frequently used during a match, as well as improving their ability to make on-the-spot decisions.
In some parts of the world learning to play soccer was inculcated in players by their culture. That culture was permeated by soccer. Young players had many chances to make mistakes, try new tricks and learn the game while in player centered neighborhood games. These same youngsters watched professional and semi-professional matches in person or on TV regularly. They evolved into the game at a natural pace and moved into their first formal team at age 11 or 12.
And for generations those imbued with a love for the beautiful game learned the game from the game. Long before getting a spot on a team with a coach countless players had their passion for soccer deeply planted in the pick up games of their childhood. While the pick up game still exists around the world increasingly a youngster’s soccer experience is centered on the formal training session and not the neighborhood game.
In the U.S.A. that soccer culture existed in only a small measure and almost exclusively in ethnic enclaves. For the majority of our players the soccer experience has been a formal one from the start. In that soccer background too much emphasis in the training of players has been placed on a robotic drill routine that has the coach at the center of the practice.
Instead the game must be the centerpiece with players at the forefront of the action.
Indeed both US Youth Soccer and U. S. Soccer have advocated a game-like approach to training session activities for over thirty years.
In “The Game is the Best Teacher” master coach Detlev Brüggemann puts this development approach into a style that you can use in your very next training session. The good sense approach of training players based on both an annual player development scheme and
weekly match observation is presented throughout the book.
He looks at the game itself, takes situations that occur regularly for players and then breaks them down into a training approach that players of many ages can understand and enjoy. Even in formal training sessions coaches can use the game itself as the teacher of
the game. Further the activities are such that coaches can easily conduct a most productive training session.
With the guidance of Coach Brueggemann you will come to a better understanding of the game and how to teach it to your players. Enjoy the Game!